Made to Stick & Starting a Revolution with Seth Godin

I recently finished reading the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. I'm not sure what made me pick up this book at the library, but I know I've always been fascinated with how to best communicate my ideas so that people will actually remember them. I can trace my initial inclination to become a teacher to this desire - to communicate ideas of importance in a creative way. I believe my desire to photograph also comes from this basic interest in communication. I'm always on the lookout for the best way to communicate what I'm passionate about in the hopes that my work might make a difference.

I must say that my interest in reading non-fiction was pretty much zero until about 3-4 years ago when I read Fast Food Nation. Anyway, Made to Stick was an awesome non-fiction read. It's full of great stories of how ordinary people have made their ideas or products "stick" (most of which you will be familiar with but may not know the back-story). As the book jacket says, "In this book, you'll learn the six key qualities of an idea that is made to stick." Check it out if you have time.

On another note, I just came across a post on Tasra Mar's blog with a Seth Godin video embedded. It's a TED talk about starting a revolution. It actually touches on a few of the same ideas that were in the book, such as telling stories to the audience who may be interested in your idea or product. It's about 17 minutes long, but it's well worth it. Here's the link to Tasra's blog post with the video: Starting A Revolution

Route 66

I recently completed a pretty long road trip, a small part of which was spent on Route 66. I've often "reminisced" about this place that I've never seen. As with most things, when I finally see something that I've heard about or thought about all my life, it didn't exactly measure up to my expectations. Here's just one of the anomalies I came across on my way to Flagstaff, AZ. I typically name my image files with something that is in the photograph...this one I simply named "Strange":

I'm a guest blogger today...

I was recently contacted by Skin Cohen who runs Marketing Essentials International, a marketing consulting blog for the photography industry. I "met" Skip through Twitter. Although the jury is still out (as far as I'm concerned) as to the value of Twitter for me, I have met some people I would never have had the opportunity to come across by networking through Twitter. Skip saw something I posted, checked out my website, then contacted me about being a guest blogger on his blog. Our phone conversation focused on the importance of maintaining personal projects, so I geared my post towards that along with how it intertwines with where I'm at in my life. Check out Skip's blog (and my post from today) by clicking the title of this post. Thanks!